Our view: Brand will do its job

At first glance, the city of St. Cloud's new logo and brand are less than impressive. Look (and think) again, and you can see potential in a variety of applications. And that's what the community should focus on moving forward.

Building on the brand "St. Cloud GREATER" announced in the fall, Mayor Dave Kleis unveiled the official logo Tuesday in his State of the City speech. It's the math symbol for "greater than," also known as a chevron.

Using a simple symbol instead of an image or icon distinctive to the metro area certainly seems more like "blanding" than strong branding. That said, there are a couple of compelling factors in this choice.

First, like it or not, the metro area does not have an all-encompassing image or iconic structure. (Think Duluth's waterfront or the Capitol in St. Paul.)

Admittedly, it's tempting to cite the Mississippi River. In reality, though, the metro area's history is not built around the river. Certainly, the river plays a role, but so do rail lines, retail districts, roads, educational institutions, quarries, agriculture, neighboring cities, and dozens of other industries and recreational assets.

A brand highlighting just one of those not only borders on misleading, but undersells the many aspects of diversity that make the metro area among the fastest-growing communities statewide.

And that gets to the other major factor in the choice of this symbol and "St. Cloud GREATER."

It offers huge potential for developing internal and external marketing campaigns that can be delivered across many platforms and time frames.

Similarly— and as this board opined about Friday — the brand and logo can be crafted to reflect it's about more than one city. St. Cloud GREATER ... with Sartell, Sauk Rapids, St. Joseph, Waite Park and St. Augusta.

Again, lacking an obvious local icon, the perhaps unintentional ambiguity of "St. Cloud GREATER" is its biggest strength.

Ultimately, that should be the focus for the metro area. The city already has spent about two years and up to $40,000 on the project.

Quite honestly, it's waste of community energy to go the route residents of Austin (home to Hormel) chose last week. In case you missed it, intense public objections to that city's new "Talent Packed" brand — complete with a logo resembling a Spam-like container — forced city officials to, ahem, can it and search for something else.